Officials on the southern Greek island of Crete evacuated thousands of people from wildfires, while two people died in neighbouring Turkey as fires took hold in the western province of Izmir on Thursday.
In a Swiss pine forest, the treetops are being sprayed with mist in a bid to discover the effect that drier or wetter air has on their ability to survive.
A punishing early summer heatwave that has already scorched western and southern Europe spread east Wednesday, bringing extreme weather warnings to Germany and reportedly causing motorways to buckle.
The EU on Wednesday unveiled its long-delayed target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, but with contested new flexibilities built in to win over the most sceptical member states.
Paris braced for blistering temperatures on Tuesday, with the French capital on red alert as an early summer heatwave spread into parts of northern Europe less accustomed to such extremes.
Japan experienced its hottest June on record, the weather agency said Tuesday, as climate change prompts sweltering heat waves across the globe.
Paris was put on red alert for extreme heat and Spain and Portugal reported record temperatures on Monday as a heatwave across southern Europe triggered health warnings and fuelled wildfires.
Countries including France, Kenya, Barbados and Spain on Monday launched a coalition to push for taxes on wealthy air passengers to help poorer nations respond to climate change, the French presidency said.
Firefighters mobilised in several countries to tackle blazes as southern Europeans sought shelter from punishing temperatures of a heatwave that is set to intensify in the coming days.
Southern Europeans braced Saturday for their first heatwave of the northern hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes thermometers on the world's fastest-warming continent increasingly into the red.